


Goodbye

by alexis (of_too_minds)



Category: Dark Angel
Genre: Angst, F/M, post 1.22 And Jesus Brought a Casserole, pre 2.01 Designate This
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 04:06:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/of_too_minds/pseuds/alexis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes there is no going back; no happily ever after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> One of my earliest fanfics.

Original Cindy was sound asleep.  Max knelt at the foot of her bed and gently touched O.C.’s hand.  She stirred but didn’t wake.  Max shook O.C.’s hand and whispered her name.  “Cindy! Cindy, wake up.” 

O.C.’s eyes snapped open.  “Max?!” she cried, incredulous.  Max had been gone for over a year and O.C. had come to accept that her friend really was dead.  Before she could move or say anything more, Max collapsed on the bed next to her, sobbing incoherently.  O.C. held Max close as she cried, and stroked her hair.  Eventually Max’s sobs subsided into hiccups.  She rolled onto her side, lying face to face with Cindy. 

“You’ve been to Logan’s already,” O.C. said, matter-of-factly.  Max nodded.

“And you saw Asha there.”  Max nodded again.

“Does he know you’re back?”  Max shook her head and shuddered.

“I watched them through the window.  It hurt so much I couldn’t breathe, so I ran.”  Tears slid down her face.  “Every minute of every day I thought of him.  They couldn’t break me because I had him to hold on to.  I thought I was coming home to him.  Why didn’t he wait for me?” 

“It nearly killed him, Boo.  He mourned you for a long time.  But there comes a point when you either shrivel up and die or you put your grief aside and go on living.  Asha helped with that.  But he don’t love her the way that he loved you.”

“But he does love her.  I saw it in the way he touched her.”  Max closed her eyes, despondent.  “I can’t stay here.  Not now.”

“I know.”  Cindy’s voice broke.  

Max opened her eyes.  O.C. was crying.  “I’m gonna miss you, that’s all.”  She gave Max a sad smile.

“I’m sorry,” Max said sorrowfully.

“I know, Boo.  It’s aiight.  You do what you have to.  Just let the boy know you’re alive.  He deserves that much.” 

It took Max a long time to write the note.  There was too much to say, and nothing, all at once.  So she settled on saying goodbye.

O.C. called in sick and they spent the day catching up.  Toward sundown Max packed up the few belongings she needed for the road.  She left the note with O.C.  

When it was time to go, O.C. tried once to talk her out of leaving.  “He still loves you, boo.”

Max shrugged and strapped her belongings to her Ninja.  “But not enough.  He chose her.”

“Only cuz he didn’t know he had a choice.”

“Leave it.  It’s over.”

Original Cindy held her tight.  “No regrets,” she whispered in Max’s ear.  

Max kissed Cindy on the cheek, and hopped on her bike.  She drove off into the dying light and left Seattle behind without a backward glance.  “No regrets,” she whispered like a mantra as she drove.  “No regrets.”  Maybe if she said it often enough it would come true.

 

* * *

 

Original Cindy stood outside Logan’s door for a very long time before she found the courage to knock.  Logan answered.  He took in her tired, tearstained face and said, alarmed “O.C., what’s wrong?  What’s happened?” 

Silently she handed him Max’s note.  He looked at his name on the front, in Max’s handwriting, and all colour drained from his face.  He stumbled to the kitchen and collapsed into a chair.  “She’s alive,” he whispered, staring at the envelope.  “She’s alive,” he repeated, “she’s alive!”  He jumped to his feet, frantic.  “Where is she?  I have to find her.  I have to see her!”  He rushed for the door, but O.C. barred his way out.

“She’s gone,” she said very gently.  “She left this evening.  She wouldn’t tell me where she was going.  I don’t think she even knew.”

“But why? Why would she just leave?” he cried, anguished.  He glanced wildly around the penthouse, and saw the evidence of his happy little life with Asha.  “What have I done?” he sobbed.

O.C. took him in her arms and guided him towards the couch.

He sat in a daze for a long time.  Finally he said in a broken voice, “I knew she wasn’t dead.  I knew she couldn’t be.  But she was gone so long.  So long.  When you’re the only one who believes in something, eventually you just give up hope.” 

O.C. picked up the note that Logan had let fall from his numb fingers, and placed in back in his hands.  “She wanted you to know.  She wanted a chance to say goodbye.”  

O.C. left him there, staring at the envelope.  He was afraid to open the letter, afraid of what he would find inside.  He didn’t want to remember her as being hurt, furious, bitter.  But he couldn’t not read it, couldn’t just toss it into a drawer somewhere.  So in the end he had no choice but to open it.

 

_I used to think we had our whole lives ahead of us.  But we didn’t.  We just had mine._

_This lifetime, the one I’m living now, isn’t mine.  It’s borrowed from someone else and it’s not the same thing at all.  A year is all we had.  It’s gone, and that’s just the way it is.  It’s no one’s fault that we wasted it._

_I never got the chance to tell you how I felt.  There isn’t much point now, but it matters to me that you know.  It wasn’t just a dream.  I love you.  Death didn’t change that.  But life does.  Life goes on.  At least, it has for you.  I suppose it will for me too, eventually._

_I don’t mean to sound bitter.  It’s just the shock of seeing her where I always wanted to be._

_Because of you, I found the strength to endure.  I held on to the memory of you and it got me out of there.  I thought I was coming home to you.  But this isn’t a fairy tale, and not everyone gets to live “happily ever after.”  I can’t hold on to you any longer.  You aren’t mine anymore._

_I want you to be happy.  I do.  You deserve to be happy.  You deserve someone to love, someone who will love you back.  Someone with no secrets to haunt you, and no dark past.  So love her Logan, and be happy._

_Think of me, sometimes.  I’ll be thinking of you.  Goodbye,_

_Your Max_


End file.
